


if I don't worry

by whowhotellsyourstory



Series: Uncle Steve's Fix-it Freelance Gig (and friends) [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Dog - Freeform, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, UNO, bike engines too, car engines, car engines from google, tony built his first engine at age 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 16:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whowhotellsyourstory/pseuds/whowhotellsyourstory
Summary: "I regret ever teaching you anything about car repair.""You didn't teach me anything about car repair, daddy.Googletaught me how to shut down an engine.""Shit, I think Google is one of the few things I can't buy."-Morgan Stark is a problem solver, and her only collateral damage is Uncle Steve's sanity.





	if I don't worry

“Steve, we’ve got a security breach.”

It was said in the monotone that Bucky favored, on this side of the millennium. Steve’s head snapped up in alarm, only to find Bucky staring at Morgan. Morgan was staring back, equally suspicious. The two of them seemed to be blinking at about the same rate, which is to say, not at all.

Steve rolled his eyes. “It’s not a security breach, it’s Morgan.” Bucky responded with a blank look. “Morgan Stark,” Steve reminded.

“I know who Morgan Stark is, Captain Obvious. Why is she in our apartment?”

“Hanging out,” Morgan replied. “Who’s the rude man, Uncle Steve?”

“Uncle Bucky. And he’s not rude, he just doesn’t believe in wasting words.”

Morgan frowned, which Steve thought was her way of expressing incredulity at such a concept. “Daddy never mentioned an Uncle Bucky.”

Bucky nodded, sidling up next to Steve and grabbing a freshly brewed cup of coffee. “He probably figured you were too young to be traumatized.”

“You’re a very self-aware guy, Barn- Uncle Bucky,” Tony said by way of greeting, walking in from the guest bathroom. He’d cleaned up – rearranged his hair back into the right level of disheveled, smoothed out the worst wrinkles in his shirt, and rolled his sleeves back to hide the stains his improv tinkering session had left behind.

All in all, a successful effort in hiding the signs of his impromptu kidnapping adventure, over for barely an hour by then. Peter hadn’t bothered – he was sitting on the couch, waiting, curls matted with grime and sweat and what was hopefully _not_ blood. The kid had come in looking like he needed to freshen up much more than Tony, but seemed freakishly comfortable with his condition.

Bucky took notice of him and Rhodes then, too. “Steve, we've talked about this,” he muttered lowly. “I don’t want to attend your boyband reunions. I wouldn’t have been home if you’d warned me.”

“What’s traumatized?” Morgan asked before Steve had a chance to open his mouth, because every minute that girl spent in this specific company was another minute spent expanding her vocabulary in all the wrong ways.

“And that’s my cue.” Rhodes stood up, eyes flickering from Morgan to Tony. “I’m taking you and your children home, Tony, get your ass moving. I want a front row seat when Pepper gets her hands on you.”

“First of all, I haven’t decided I’m adopting Barnes yet, don’t make assumptions-”

“ _I’ve_ decided,” Bucky muttered. “I’ve decided against it.”

“Second of all, Morgan will act as my human shield, won’t you, Maguna?”

Morgan blinked up at him with wide eyes, and then made a wild, sudden dash for Steve, who was almost startled enough to take a step back and accidentally trip her up. He caught her in his arms instead, extremely confused when she clung to his neck at once with one hell of a vice grip. “Uh – I don’t think she approves, Tony.”

Tony seemed confused too. Before anyone else could get one more word in edgewise, Morgan mumbled something incomprehensible into Steve’s shoulder. Steve flicked her ear. “Louder for the people that don’t live in my shirt.”

“I wanna play Uno with Uncle Steve.”

There was a pregnant pause. Bucky seemed like he was learning about yet another inexplicable twenty-first century thing. Rhodes sat back down. Peter pulled a face at Tony, who shrugged back and walked over to Steve.

“You can do that another day, sweetheart,” he promised cautiously, ruffling Morgan’s hair. “We’ll come back to bother him-”

“ _No_ ,” she insisted, a level of cranky only toddlers were allowed to achieve. “Today. _Now_.”

Tony frowned at her, then at Steve, an expression of mounting bewilderment on his face that probably mirrored Steve’s. “Uh-”

He would’ve been saved by the bell, if the bell was Tony’s _Bad Blood_ ringtone. Steve was ashamed to admit he was starting to recognize Tony's pop culture references, even if he still found it incomprehensible how the man understood them all himself.

Tony frowned, pulling up his phone and shrugging at Steve. “SHIELD.”

“Fury?”

“Fury's ringtone is _Every Breath You Take_. I don't like it when SHIELD calls, but I like it even less when it's not him. You've reached the original martyr, how can I suffer for your welfare today?” Tony added in a saccharine tone of voice, now directly into the phone.

Steve heard the response through the tiny speakers, loud and clear. He didn’t recognize whoever it belonged to. “ _You're pulling that card right off the bat because you’re preparing to avoid our questions_.”

Tony gaped for a brief second, then schooled his expression back into a passive mask. “Okay, random-SHIELD-croonie-69. Didn’t know sassing Tony Stark was part of the standard operating procedure over there, nowadays.”

There was a beat of silence that Steve thought was almost hesitant. “ _We've had a chance to debrief the suspects in your incident, and we have a few questions to ask, if you have the time._ ”

“I always make time for SHIELD after my _incidents_. Top of my priority list.”

His sarcasm either went ignored or misunderstood. “ _They're claiming you weren’t alone._ ”

“Well, I expect it'd be embarrassing to admit a middle-aged man burned down their village by himself,” Tony acquiesced magnanimously. “We’ve been over this. I hope I don’t need to explain to you they're lying.”

Peter’s eyes were blown wide. Tony nudged his arm in what was probably meant to be a reassuring gesture. Unfortunately, it fell short of helping with the next sentence.

“ _They're claiming there was a kid with you._ ”

Peter's entire body jolted – Tony’s hand gripped his shoulder and stayed there. “A kid,” he repeated, doing a bang-up job of sounding politely disbelieving. “They're saying there was an infant in my company. Sounds accurate. I hang out with so many children.”

“ _Not a random child. A teenager. Spider-Man._ ”

Tony made a noise like he was dramatically holding in a snort. “I was kidnapped in the company of Spider-Man, the super-enhanced teenager. Yes, of course, I remember now. He was supposed to be protecting me, but he caught sight of a zit on a mirror nearby, and went on a whiny spiel about prom. That's how they got us – he lost his will to live.”

“ _… There's been plenty of past eye-witness reports that make Spider-Man out to be on the younger side-_ ”

Tony didn’t miss a smooth beat. “Which is how they knew what kind of bullshit you'd be stupid enough to chow down. If I had an enhanced in my company, d'you really think I’d need all the fancy gadgets I _know_ you found? Why would I lift a finger?”

Steve glanced at Peter's face and read pure awe. Steve was pretty impressed himself, but he had a feeling Tony's fibbing abilities weren't something he should be passing down to the youth. Tony's enjoyment of the kid's hero-worship notwithstanding - as far as Peter was concerned, Tony could clearly rearrange the stars if he put his mind into it - Steve had suffered enough ' _kid is the future, Cap_ ' and ' _gonna be the best of us_ ' sweeping declarations to think otherwise.

“ _You were gone from the scene by the time we arrived._ ”

“Yeah, Captain Rogers gave me a lift. He does that, pulls me out of trouble, works as my personal driver, very all-American guy. Feel free to ask _him_ about a Spider-Kid and call _him_ a liar when he backs me up,” Tony advised, glaring at Steve like Steve wasn’t fully prepared to lie through his teeth to protect the kid's identity.

Apparently, that idea was less appealing than continuing to harass Tony. “ _Who broke open the locks?_ ”

“I did.”

“ _Another gadget?_ ”

“ _No_ , my bare hands and winning personality, what do you think?” Tony huffed, bleeding sarcasm. “I was _alone_. Frankly, my word should count more against the word of a bunch of incompetent felons. I’ve been more patient with your third degree than should really be expected of me. I didn’t die for this shit.”

“Is this gonna be a thing?” Steve muttered. “Ending arguments with ‘I didn’t die for this shit’?”

“Only the ones I'm losing,” Tony told him, hand covering the receiver, and then returned to his call. “By the way, from now on, I only communicate with SHIELD via Fury or Hill. They’re the only ones I care enough about to put on hold indefinitely.”

“ _You’ll have to give the boy up eventually_.”

Tony hung up the call. “Well, that was productive.”

“Mr. Stark-”

“Not a word, kid. Especially if we’re regressing here.”

Peter huffed. “ _Tony_ -”

“I said ‘not a word’.”

“I just wanted to say _thank you_.”

Tony's hand still hadn’t dropped away from the kid's shoulder. “Yeah, exactly.”

“You know, it _is_ pretty rude they won’t trust Stark implicitly,” Bucky commented, and Tony jumped a little like he’d forgotten the man was still there.

“No one ever does,” he said evenly, trying to maintain his sense of dignity. “It’s hurtful. The starting assumption is always that I’m lying.”

“Because you _were_ ,” Steve reminded him, looking down at Morgan, who was still clinging to his neck. She'd observed Tony's phone conversation attentively and was no less inclined to remain right where she was. When she caught sight of him staring at her, her tiny little fingers dug further into his collar.

“They didn’t know that.” Tony was looking at Morgan too, only half a mind on their conversation. “Have you gotten bored of Uncle Steve yet, Maguna?”

“Can I stay here?” Morgan requested, worrying her bottom lip.

Tony blinked twice, approaching Steve again. He poked her forehead and squinted. “For another two minutes? Sure.”

“Sleepover,” she elaborated. Tony squinted some more.

“Why?” Steve asked almost without thinking, confused.

Morgan pursued her lips and Tony waved him off, as if to say _shh, I've got this_. “You know mommy and I will both get extremely upset if we don't get at _least_ three of our goodnight kisses. _Each_.”

Morgan hunched on herself some more and leaned further into Steve’s chest, the expression on her face increasingly distressed. “Then can Uncle Steve come with us? Yeah, that's better,” she said decisively, apparently approving of her own words even more after she's said them. “Uncle Steve can have a sleepover with us instead.”

Tony's brow furrowed, apparently still not working out her behavior. Steve was torn between his instinct to assist Tony’s efforts and his complete lack of understanding in how he could possibly assist Tony’s efforts, so he remained mute. “And who, pray tell, will read Uncle Bucky his bedtime story?” Bucky offered him a silent salute in acknowledgement.

“I want to play Uno,” was Morgan’s terse, short-worded answer. Tony sighed.

“Alright, kiddo, time to be a big girl,” he said, nudging her chin up until she was making eye contact with him. “This isn’t Uno-playing hours. Or Uncle-Steve-hangout hours. We need to get going, mommy and Aunt May are both waiting to lecture me.”

Reluctantly, she backed down, and didn’t protest as Steve dislodged her from his shirt and set her on the floor. The morose, doe-eyed look on her face did things to his heartbeat, however, so he exchanged a look with Tony and ruffled her hair. “Tell you what,” Steve said, slowly, “be here bright and early tomorrow morning, and I’ll let you kick my ass at Uno.”

It made Morgan brighten a little. She rounded on Tony. “Can we?”

“Sure. It’s Uncle Steve’s pride to lose,” Tony agreed dramatically. She brightened further.

Rhodes cleared his throat, already by the door. “You all set now, little miss?”

Morgan nodded and made a bee-line for Peter, who picked her up automatically. She poked at his curls and her expression contorted. “Gross.”

“Yeah, using your dad’s hair gel was a huge mistake,” Peter told her solemnly. Rhodes snorted, Morgan giggled, and Tony blew a raspberry at him. Bucky stared at the door intently like the power of his glare could magically shepherd Steve’s guests outside.

Steve waited until they were gone to pat his best friend on the back. “They’ll grow on you.”

“That’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

* * *

Steve got back from his morning run, the next day, in a good mood. The skies were clear, Bruce and Nat had officially returned to active duty (something he was keeping up with in a fully civilian capacity), and his daily Barton family photo text finally featured a smiling Clint. His promise to Morgan was on the back of his mind as he rounded the last corner back to his apartment and climbed up the stairs – he was curious about what had had the little girl in such a state the previous night, but figured Tony would have talked it out with her by the time she arrived.

Steve was fishing his keys out, gaze set downwards and pace set brisk, when a solid reminder brought that promise to the forefront, in the form of the youngest Stark stomping over to him from the direction of his front door. His eyes snapped up to meet Morgan's.

“You’re late.”

“You're early,” he said, gobsmacked, looking up to find Tony too. “You’re never early. You haven’t seen the right side of six am in all the time I've known you.”

Tony had a deeply perturbed look on his face. “You think it was _my_ choice?”

“You're late,” Morgan repeated, demanding Steve's attention. “You weren't home.”

 _How does she make that sound so accusatory?_ Steve opened his mouth, stricken, and Tony came to his rescue. “We've been here all of five minutes. I’m guessing Barnes is either asleep or just prefers us waiting out in the hallway.”

“The second one,” Steve told him truthfully. He unlocked the door and Morgan scurried in after him. Bucky glanced up from the kitchen, quietly brewing himself a cup of tea.

“You’re a di- a dreadful host,” Tony said with barely a stutter. Bucky shrugged.

“You’re getting better at that,” Morgan praised. Tony looked equal parts patronized and pleased with himself.

“I know. Hush about it.”

He primly removed his jacket and hung it up in the coat hanger by the door. Morgan had wandered over to inspect Bucky’s drink, and Tony did the same, except his goal was to pull an obtrusively disdainful expression at the cup of tea while making deliberate use of the expresso machine.

Steve spared Morgan a glance and stole Tony’s coffee while he wasn’t looking. By the time he noticed, Steve was already dumping three spoonsful of sugar in it. “Morgan seems much calmer,” he commented as Tony narrowed his eyes at him.

“I’m gonna find a way to make diabetes super-soldier-resistant,” Tony promised, and turned away to make himself another expresso. “And why wouldn’t she be? She’s here, she’s achieved her goal.”

“What was up with her, yesterday?”

“I’ll let you know, soon as I get it out of her,” Tony replied with a sigh, now staring at his daughter himself. “Who knew five-year-olds could be so inscrutable?”

“If she says something, today, I’ll call you.”

“I’ll be here to hear it. Oh, yeah, I’m _staying_ , this time,” Tony said firmly. “ _I’m_ in no danger of thinking it’s a good idea to drag my kid into the middle of a mugging.”

“I think it’s nice that you guys can still do family outings even after the divorce,” Bucky piped up unnecessarily, and Steve immediately dumped the rest of his tea down the drain. Bucky didn’t miss a beat and poured himself more the minute Steve returned the mug.

“I didn’t know he had a personality,” Tony admired, looking at Bucky.

Morgan glanced between them, curiously. “We’re going out?”

She didn’t seem upset at the prospect, so her intention couldn’t be just to camp out in Steve’s apartment. Her eyes held the same deceptive sparkly quality they’d had, before, when he’d offered to paint with her. Steve wouldn’t be fooled – he had prepared, this time. He did actually own a deck of Uno cards, sure, but he was also ready for when Morgan inevitably got bored of it within ten minutes.

“We’re gonna walk Bucky’s dog.”

Bucky immediately removed himself from the situation. “Bring him back alive,” he instructed, and disappeared into the hallway, cup of tea steaming in his hand.

Tony stared at Steve. Morgan was hanging onto her dad’s pant-leg, quietly excited and awaiting further information. Whatever Steve’s expression was saying, Tony seemed to become convinced he was serious.

“Since when do you have a dog?”

“Bucky rescued one,” Steve corrected. “He’s called Lucky.”

“No, he’s not,” Tony rejected in horror. “Oh my god, the guy you nicknamed _Bucky_ named the dog _Lucky_?”

“Clint named it, actually, he thought it was funny,” Steve explained, and from down the hallway came the pitter-patter of a small animal rushing to greet visitors. “There he is.”

“Why would you let Clint- oh, _crap._ ” Lucky had started with Tony. The designer pants must have smelled the strongest to him. Tony stayed put, but from the look on his face, it was an arduous effort. “That’s an animal, Rogers,” he grit out, eyeing the dog as it slobbered all over his shoes. Morgan shrieked in delight, however, and he grimaced as she instantly went to her knees beside it. Lucky’s tail started waggling. “If she asks me for a puppy, I’m killing you,” he hissed at Steve. “No – I’ll get _Pepper_ to kill you. That’ll hurt worse.”

“They’d look cute in the photos.”

Tony only glared harder. “It’s an _animal_.”

“So you’ve said. You know you live on a lake-side property, right?”

“And I really like how the grass is completely free of dog shit.”

“Do you have a soul?”

“Not since the eighties.”

* * *

Walking Lucky kept them busy all morning. Steve had never spent this much time with Tony doing something so mundane. Since the accords, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t spent this much time with him at all, apart from their time-hopping quest. War criminals didn’t get to be friends with upstanding citizens who half-heartedly hated them, and then, by the time the universe stopped spinning, Tony had five years to build his own bubble of tranquility where there was no room for the Avengers.

Like she was privy to Steve’s train of thought, Morgan chose that exact moment to yank on his jacket and demand to be handed Lucky’s leash – her version of a roundhouse kick to Steve’s self-deprecation.

“ _We_ are walking the fleabag, the fleabag isn’t walking _you_ ,” Tony stressed in response before Steve could. “When I’m confident you can at least bench-press a bag of flour, you can have the leash.”

“I can hold him,” she insisted stubbornly. Lucky barked because Tony kept dodging his attempts to further investigate the hem of his pants. “I can hold the leash.”

“You can hold _on_ to the leash, sure. Especially while it’s dragging you down the road.”

They made it to the park Steve had had in mind while Morgan failed to out-argument her dad. It became a moot point, anyway, because he let Lucky loose then, allowing him to roll around the grass with the other dogs and with, apparently, a very invested five-year-old girl.

“I don’t know where she’s getting the energy,” Tony muttered, watching Morgan run and whoop after Lucky for hours on end. “Kid barely slept any last night.”

Steve frowned. Morgan glanced over at them like she was checking they were right where she’d left them, and then went right back to chasing after a new friend Lucky had made, who delighted in obligingly running away.

“Isn’t that worrisome?”

Tony _pfft_ -ed at him. “What kind of toddler needs a consistent sleep schedule?”

Steve was surprised. “You’re okay letting her go on with her day without knowing what’s wrong?”

“This _is_ how I’m gonna find out what’s wrong.”

He didn’t ask Tony to elaborate.

They went back to Steve’s apartment for lunch, because Tony was already getting enough attention as it was, out with Steve at a dog park. Morgan, surprisingly, didn’t put up much of a fuss to leave, even though she was clearly willing to spend the rest of the day in Lucky’s company. She fell into step with Tony as soon as Steve got the leash back on the dog’s collar, skipping and humming the whole way back. Tony gave her a side-eye a couple of times, but she said nothing relevant apart from “Lucky’s scared of the leash.”

Tony patted her shoulder in response. “You’re still not going to hold it, baby.”

“But I’m his favorite, it’ll make him feel better.”

“Bucky’s his favorite,” Steve chimed in.

Morgan crossed her arms. “I don’t know who that is.” Tony made a noise of pure affection and cracked up laughing. Steve knew she was Tony Stark’s daughter, but sometimes he really _knew_ she was Tony Stark’s daughter.

Bucky was gone by the time they arrived, and Tony ordered pizza before Steve could suggest either of them burn down the kitchen by attempting to cook. Steve watched him scroll through pictures of Morgan and Lucky in various stages of euphoria and disarray on his phone, over pepperoni and cheese, and smirked at the smile on his face.

“So, are you telling Pepper or should I?”

“Since it’s completely your fault, I feel like you should suffer first,” Tony returned without missing a beat. “You do it.”

“What are we telling mommy?” Morgan asked, looking between the two of them.

“Nothing. We’re definitely not telling her we should get a puppy.”

Her eyes lit up. “ _Oh_ , you’re using your opposite voice. We’re getting a puppy?!”

“This conversation has gotten out of hand. When mommy asks, remember I didn’t technically promise anything.”

* * *

Morgan’s energy didn’t deplete after lunch, and neither did her unwillingness to abscond of Steve’s company. It was starting to become a problem.

The afternoon came and went, and she kept up a singular focus that was uncanny for any child under the age of sixteen, particularly a sleep-deprived one. Morgan never even allowed herself so much as a yawn – she kept Lucky company until they got tired of each other, but only the dog plopped down at Tony's feet to sleep. Eventually, she abandoned all pretenses and just glued herself to Steve’s side. He took out the trash and she insisted on accompanying him out of great concern over his recycling intentions. He placed the dishes in the dishwasher and she inspected the machine's settings very closely. He and Tony sat down to watch some cartoon Clint had told him about, and she only joined them after suspiciously confirming they weren’t moving.

It took her twenty seconds into the first episode for her to have a question. “Daddy, what’s a neutrino bomb?”

Tony got over his trance and snapped his gaze away from the screen. “Rogers, what in the ever-loving _f_ \- _what_ am I watching right now?”

“What am _I_ – it was Clint who suggested, he said it was a cartoon-”

“Oh, so your justification is that it was _Clint’s suggestion_? Yeah, absolutely, that definitely improves the circumstances.”

“Doesn’t he have three kids?” Steve protested, and Tony scoffed.

“Just because it’s a cartoon doesn’t mean it’s for _children_ , Cap. I _know_ you were made aware of pre- _Green Eggs and Ham_ Dr. Seuss, back when the entire country agreed nazis were the bad guys-”

“What’s Adam and Eve?” Morgan insisted, inquisitive again, eyes still on the screen.

Tony’s nostrils flared and he placed his hands over his daughter’s ears. “ _Look_ what you’ve done, now she’s learning about _religion_.”

Steve gave up and shut off the flat screen. Morgan was left staring between the two of them. “Every time you’re around, everything turns _chaotic_ ,” Steve muttered, and Tony crossed his eyes at him, which was a new level of childishness for him to live down to, next time.

“I’m sorry, which one of us put on the weird show about an alcoholic and his grandson for my five-year-old?”

Steve pretended not to hear him and Morgan giggled like it had just hit her that the whole thing was very funny.

The TV was set aside after that, so Morgan finally demanded her game of Uno. It went on for hours, and Steve realized far too late why Tony had begged off immediately.

“Uno.”

Steve laid a green three over Morgan's yellow three, and Morgan laid a plus-four card atop it, blinking up at him innocently. Steve narrowed his eyes at the pile.

“That’s the fifth plus-four you’ve used. The deck does not have five plus-four cards.”

She blinked her big eyes again. _Shit_ , Steve thought, _every week she gets more precocious._ Her sixth birthday was fast-approaching, and a Black Widow plushy suddenly felt like an incredibly ill-fitting gift. At this rate, Steve would be safer getting her an AP math textbook.

“I dunno what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about your underhanded gaming techniques,” he accused dramatically, poking her forehead. “I counted those cards.”

Morgan gasped equally dramatically. “You _counted cards_? That’s _cheating_.”

“This isn’t poker, it’s Uno.”

Her face screwed up curiously. “What’s poker?”

“It's a card game that's ten times as boring as this one.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Because the game is so boring, it's not for little girls.”

“But I wanna know,” Morgan insisted, standing up. “Maybe I’ll go ask daddy. I’ll tell him you told me all about it and he’ll explain-”

Steve grabbed her arm hastily, nudging her to sit back down. “So, plus four?”

Morgan smugly handed him four more cards to add to his hand.

By the time Steve legitimately or illegitimately lost his fifth round, Tony wandered back into the room. He offered Steve a smirk that was equal parts condescending and mocking, somehow, and ruffled Morgan’s hair in praise.

“You signed up for this,” he pointed out, and Steve flipped him off behind her back.

As the hours ticked and pushed into dinner-time, the bags under Morgan's eyes started getting to Tony. When he encouraged her to take a nap, however, she claimed she needed to use the bathroom, and then disappeared for half an hour straight. She reappeared on Steve’s couch, carelessly, like that’s exactly where she’d been the whole time. One of his fine-liner pens was held clumsily in her hand, decorating the coffee table with the word _Morgan_ in obnoxiously choppy handwriting.

Tony rescued the pen with practiced speed, and Steve barely acknowledged his apologetic grimace. “How did you even get into the office?” Steve asked, being handed the pen he knew should be in a drawer behind a locked door. He had learned from the paint incident.

“Where did you go?” Tony demanded instead, only just getting over his moment of panic at letting her out of his sight for so long. “We’ve been looking for you for-”

“I was right here,” she said, frowning in Oscar-worthy confusion. Her bangs spilled to the side, behind her hairband, when she tilted her head. “Was gonna make a drawing.”

Steve pointed at her handiwork. “That’s your name, not a drawing.” He handed her the pen back, which made Tony groan. “If I’m promised a drawing, I expect a drawing.”

Morgan grinned toothily, accepted the pen, and went right back to work. “It’s my signature.”

“Why did you do your signature _before_ the drawing?”

“’Cause it’s the most important part.”

Steve gave Tony a very intent stare. “That’s very self-centered.”

“No, it’s _just_ self-centered enough,” Morgan argued happily. “Sit. Watch.”

Steve sat and watched her make artwork of his coffee table. He could already tell that table was going to become the one piece of furniture he’d drag with him into every new home he’d ever own. Morgan claimed, when she was done, that it was a picture of Uncle Steve from an alternate universe where he was Captain America. Tony hid a snort behind his hand, and Steve made a mental note to put a coat of varnish over the ink so it wouldn’t fade.

* * *

“So – uh – did you end up figuring it out or-?”

Tony scuffed Steve’s floor, swinging Morgan’s bag – already fully packed and ready to go – onto his back. “If you’re referring to Morgan’s behavior – no.”

It was getting late, and Pepper was expecting her family home for dinner. Which meant the time to drag Morgan away from Steve’s apartment was approaching too, and from the look on Tony’s face, he was as convinced as Steve was that Morgan wouldn’t take that nearly as well as she had the previous day.

It’d been plenty of fun so long as they were all on the same page – while the plan was hanging out with Steve all day, Morgan was nothing if not cooperative. The problem was that their plans diverged at the end, and Steve didn’t think Morgan would be so cooperative about leaving.

“If you don’t know what’s wrong, how are you getting her out of here?”

Tony grimaced and didn’t answer.

Morgan had spent the past several minutes quietly coloring in her coffee table vandalism. Tony plopped down next to her unceremoniously, except he was clearly too old to tuck his legs and kneel. His daughter ended up splaying herself across his legs, apparently fully intending to continue her work from the comfort of her personal lounging chair. Tony’s nose scrunched up and Steve snapped a photo to send to Pepper.

“Maguna. You know what time it is?”

“Time is a construct,” she answered vaguely.

Tony didn’t miss a beat. “And the people who constructed it could tell me what time it is, so why can’t you?”

“‘Cause you’re gonna say it’s dinner time and mommy’s waiting.”

“That’s really cool, can you also predict the weather tomorrow?”

As he watched Morgan snicker, Steve started to understand where the little girl’s verbal repertoire came from. She finally shifted back to make eye contact with her father. “You’re more predictable than the weather.”

“That might genuinely be one of the most insulting things anyone has ever said about me.” He brushed away loose strands of hair and fixed her crooked hairband. “Time to go?” he finally prodded, gently.

Morgan dropped her pens abruptly and stood. “Okay. Meet you in the car.”

She scurried out the door, and Steve heard the unmistakable sound of the elevator call button being pressed. Tony blinked up at him from the floor. “That- was much ado about nothing.”

Steve threw his coat at him. “You might wanna follow her before she goes down to the garage on her own.”

He followed too, partly to send them off, partly out of curiosity. Morgan seemed pleased about Steve’s company, which only added to his apprehension. Tony had parked his car in his apartment’s assigned space, since the Harley took up very little room, and Morgan made a beeline for it as soon as the metal doors slid open. She waited primly outside her car door, and the look on Tony’s face was almost foreboding as he clicked his key and they both climbed inside.

“I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m walking into a trap.” It was said with resignation. “See you, buddy.”

Steve was already slowly walking back, having waved them off, when he heard Tony’s door swing back open. The car hadn’t moved for the past several seconds, which was somewhat inconsistent with Tony’s usual zero-to-gun-it approach to driving. Steve sighed and did a one-eighty, because he was pretty sure he was about to find out just what they’d both been missing.

Tony was eyeing the steering wheel in surprise. The engine was running, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. For no reason in particular, Steve's eyes slanted in Morgan's direction, who slid neatly out of the car herself. She was humming in suspicious detachment, staring at the wall like there was something fascinating written there.

“What the hell?”

“Something’s wrong with the engine,” Steve guessed, still eyeing Morgan.

“Engine's running, I don’t know-” Tony sighed, giving his daughter a look too. “Remind me to put on a serious voice when we have a conversation about this later, young lady.”

Morgan pretended not to hear him and Steve cleared his throat. “Can you fix it?”

Tony threw his hands in the air and got out of the car. “Haven’t even popped the hood yet, ‘ _can you fix it_ ’,” he grumbled, doing just that. Steve watched as his hand found the release – there were several clicks and sounds of sliding metal, and Morgan finally shifted when Tony put up the safety catch.

After several minutes of silent squirming on Morgan's part, Tony reappeared from under the hood to pierce her with a disbelieving stare.

“The spark plugs are wired wrong,” he said, stunned. “ _Someone_ disconnected the leads, and then reattached them out of order.”

Steve didn’t try to parse that. “Can you fix it?” he repeated.

“I don’t know the order by heart, Steve, it's some Audi car I barely ever use; what do I look like?”

Steve hesitated, because, up until that exact moment, he'd definitely have answered that with ‘ _like a guy who knows the order of the spark plugs by heart_ ’, whatever that meant.

“I guess we’re not going anywhere,” Morgan posited brightly with an overacted sigh. Tony and Steve both silently contemplated her for several seconds.

Since Tony didn’t seem about to say anything, Steve cleared his throat. “You-”

“I’ll call Happy,” Tony interrupted, shrugging, and Morgan’s expression instantly fell into a scowl. Steve felt like he was caught in the middle of a very strange power struggle. “Pretty sure ‘personal driver’ is still somewhere on the list of his professional responsibilities.”

“It’s pretty late,” Steve mumbled, just for him, “you paying him overtime?”

“What’s the world coming to if martyrs can no longer bum inconveniently timed rides from their friends?” Tony said, already tapping away at his phone.

“I could give you a ride,” Steve offered.

Morgan almost jumped out of her skin at the suggestion. Tony looked at him, then at his motorcycle, then back at him. “Steve. Steven-”

“Every time you start talking that way, I forget I don’t actually hate you _-_ ”

“ _Steven_ , look me in the eye and tell me again how you’re giving my daughter a ride on your death trap.” It somehow sounded exactly like ‘ _Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me_ ’.

Morgan grabbed onto Steve’s hand like a clam snapping shut on someone’s unsuspecting appendage. “Daddy, you should wait for Uncle Happy,” she ordered firmly, and Tony’s bravado dissipated. “I’ll go with Uncle Steve.”

Tony glared at him. Steve supposed he earned that. “ _Or_ , we could _both_ wait for Uncle Happy.”

Morgan was not on board. “No, I think my idea is better.”

Steve waved him off. “Just – it’ll be easier this way. It’s fine.” He grabbed a spare helmet he never used from the nearby storage unit and handed it off to Morgan, who took it enthusiastically. “I’ll meet you at your place.”

Tony pinched his own nose while Steve kicked his motorcycle off its kickstand and Morgan fastened the helmet. “You do realize this is her way of keeping you around longer?”

Steve shrugged, and hoped it translated as an affirmative response.

* * *

Steve ended up staying at Tony’s for dinner, because Pepper was a perfect host and because Morgan, according to her parents, was showing all the signs of an upcoming tantrum.

“Why is she so wound up?” Pepper had asked immediately upon their arrival. Steve hadn’t known what to answer, because he’d noticed her clinginess, but whatever the little girl’s mother was seeing in her evaded him. “Did something happen today?”

“Same thing as yesterday and this morning,” Tony said in response, having let Happy off-duty already. “She didn’t sleep all day either.”

Pepper had relaxed at the explanation. “I thought spending time with Uncle Steve was supposed to solve that problem?”

Steve held up two defensive hands. “Hey, I did my best-”

Pepper didn’t seem to be in a patient sort of mood. “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you, Steve?”

He shut his mouth and nodded meekly at the order.

Between Morgan and Pepper, there wasn’t much discussion about dinner. The minute Tony brought up food, Morgan glanced up at the three adults in her company. “You all suck at cooking,” she said, like a statement of fact, and Tony was the first to nod in concession.

“We’ll order in,” Pepper decided, glancing at her husband, who was already scrolling through his phone. “Wanna help me set the table, baby?” she added, now directed to her daughter.

Because Steve was a perfect gentleman, he offered his assistance before Morgan had time to turn her eyes on him.

It should have felt a little strange, Steve thought, while being directed around the Starks’ kitchen by Pepper, to spend such a long day in the company of Tony’s family. In addition to Morgan’s off-color behavior, he had a long, complicated history with her father, and none of it was translating into his interactions with him or his loved ones.

 _Something_ should be broken in his friendship with Tony. Something should have made their interactions awkward; something should have built unbridgeable distance between them; something should have kept Tony from referring to him as _Uncle Steve_ for his daughter, and something _definitely_ should have kept him from telling her Steve was a pillar of reliability and security in their lives.

Instead, it was as easy as if they were both back to the world of ten years previous – Tony usually had such control over any given situation that he only made it awkward if he wanted to. Building that impervious persona of intrinsic confidence around him served him well – everything that wasn’t deflected was absorbed, because he made himself an unknown quantity by making a shield out of a fake, utterly known one.

Steve had fallen into that trap himself, in the beginning. The uncertainty, when he was irrefutably proven wrong, might have been what made it so hard to get over his trust issues, when it came to Tony Stark.

And now this, some weird dynamic between the two of them, the history of which no one could have adequately or realistically explained to him as a younger man. A brother-in-arms even after the arms had been turned on each other, even after the arms had been put to rest. At this point, Tony was an irreplaceable part of Steve’s life, and today had been a reminder that he didn’t make time for it as often as he should. Sometimes, he made it easy to forget.

No wonder leaving it all behind – trying to return to some place he’d somehow felt anchored, even (perhaps especially) in the middle of a war – had been such a unrestful thought. Even if he suspected _that_ anchor was a lie and a fantasy – or just an old one, long since dropped and forgotten. Maybe Steve had been needing this as much as Morgan had, in his own way.

The little girl cleared her plate quickly, and then meandered her way into Steve’s arms, after dinner. It looked like she was finally succumbing to her sleepiness. Tony and Pepper exchanged an amused look at the scene, and Morgan babbled something into Steve’s shoulder, in that slurred way that meant she was feeling too tired, bored, or regal to form full sentences and words.

“I understood everything,” Tony told her intently, leaning forward to poke at her shoulder. “ _Except_ for every word that came out of your mouth, and also the overall sentence.”

Steve reached out for the back of her neck and tucked her shirt tag away from her skin. “She said the tag was scratching her and she’s thirsty,” he explained, reaching for her glass of water on the table.

Tony stared at him. So did Pepper. “Did you develop a secret coded language with my daughter?”

“No. I just learned to interpret what she says, the way I learned with you.”

Tony stared some more. “Did you just tell me I babble like a five-year-old?”

“Like a nonsensical five-year-old,” Steve corrected. Pepper grinned.

“Alright,” she said, amused, “hand me my baby, I’ll put her to bed. You two talk about fighting freaky mind-meld wizards with a hammer and a dinner plate. Or whatever it is passes for small talk, for you Avenger people.”

Morgan’s eyes instantly flew open, and she went from the first stage of sleep to high alert in a second. Pepper kissed Tony on the corner of his mouth and lifted the little girl from Steve’s arms.

“Vibranium is very deflective, actually,” Steve half-heartedly debated. Tony snorted and Pepper offered him a deadpan look. “Works on all sorts of-”

“I’m gonna brush my teeth,” Morgan announced abruptly, cutting him off. She wiggled out of her mother’s arms and vanished into the hallway.

Tony narrowed his eyes after her, but Pepper didn’t seem to think twice about it. She followed, presumably to her own room. Tony waved a hand at Steve once they were both out of sight.

“You might wanna take this opportunity to escape,” he suggested, but Steve was thinking about anchors. “She might latch on like a clam when she comes back.”

“You know,” Steve said, “I don’t know about you – but it kinda feels, to me, we haven’t caught up in eight years.”

Tony’s eyebrows rose slowly. “Kind of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

Steve’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is it?”

His friend’s lips quirked.

* * *

Morgan didn’t actually end up coming back – Pepper put her to bed without a fuss. Steve ended up far overstaying his welcome, though.

At first, the conversation wasn’t too personal. It couldn’t be – eight years was a long time. Steve told anecdotes from their clandestine days, cleaning out leftover Hydra bases, and Tony talked about training Peter, the kid’s ups and downs.

“Reminded me a lot of you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Stupidly earnest and determined, unrealistically virtuous. Also obstinate, socially awkward, and working with some _serious_ authority issues.”

“And yet somehow, _you_ ’re the one he’s trying his hardest to emulate. Weird, huh?”

“I’ll take credit for the sarcasm.”

But when they ran out of outdated topics, and talking about those awkward five years – when Tony was less of an enemy than before Thanos, and somehow less of a friend, too – became inevitable, personal was all there was to discuss. Tony described the terrifying moments of Pepper’s difficult pregnancy, and Steve opened up for the first time about the support group he’d started only as a homage to Sam.

“It felt- I had to do something, I always have to do _something_. And I was never gonna be as good at it as him, so – I was disappointing him by being there, and I was disappointing him by walking away from it. I didn’t have a good option.”

“No one had good options, back then. If Sam is so good at this shit, how come you haven’t gone to him so he can make you feel better?”

“I have, he did. Called me an idiot, too.”

“So there’s literally nothing left for me to do here?”

Tony told him about truly disappointing Rhodes for the second time in his life in much the same way as he had the first. While Rhodes was taking over Iron Man’s duties at a time when Iron Man was needed the most, Tony was taking Pepper and disappearing into a house by the lake, going the next five years without truly donning the suit. He told Steve how he’d once dropped the military-industrial complex and left his best friend hanging, and how leaving the Avengers immediately after Thanos without a single look back was a similar blow.

“He came around, he’ll always- came around quicker the second time, too, probably because he thought we’d gone down this road before. My stupid, reckless decisions, and the radical ones I make from- he can tell them apart, eventually. Rhodey’s better at putting _me_ before everything else than even _I_ am, so – he was nothing but supportive, once he visited.”

“No one can meet Morgan and _not_ get over themselves.”

“You’re telling me.”

Steve told Tony about Bucky’s recovery in Wakanda. He’d tried to shy away from any subject involving his best friend, at first – he knew the two of them had worked out closure for their complicated history, behind closed doors that even Steve hadn’t been allowed to see into, but old habits were hard to shake. Tony was hardly going to allow evasion or cowardice, though, so Steve told him about the periodic check-ins and the incremental progress, and the he told him about how sometimes, even after all these years, it still didn’t really feel like he’d gotten his best friend back, the one he’d lost in a snowy train-track in World War II.

Tony had fidgeted for a silent second after that one. “Does it feel to you like I’m the same guy you met twelve years ago?”

Steve stared at him. He tried to fit Morgan into the day he’d met Tony Stark, and all he could picture were Iron Man’s eyes, closed under a scar in the sky, and an angry, defensive, reflexive quip about being a playboy.

“No.”

“Why do you want _him_ to be the same guy from exactly one Paul McCartney ago, then?”

Steve’s expression scrunched up. “I don’t even know-”

“I’m just saying, you’re not the same either. You’re barred from entering Germany, for one thing.”

“First of all, they lifted that four years ago-”

“Seriously, they didn’t even ban you during _World War II._ ”

“Not explicitly, no, but I’m pretty sure it was implied,” Steve said, suppressing a yawn.

Tony laughed and stood up from his couch, running a hand through his hair. “Alright, I don’t have groundbreaking science to invent tonight, and I’m getting old,” he prompted. “Your bike’s gathering dust.”

“You’re only supposed to kick me out in the morning,” Steve complained, but he was already standing up after him.

Tony shrugged and threw him his jacket. “Don’t wanna lead you on.”

Steve hesitated after shrugging it on. “Tony,” he called, before the man wandered away, “today was great. We should do this more often.” And he pulled him into a hug.

Tony accepted it for two seconds before squirming away. Steve wasn’t fooled. He knew he'd been hugged back. “Sure thing. Anytime my daughter acts like a clingy lunatic, I’ll show up at your doorstep.”

Tony and Pepper’s garage doubled as his workshop, which made it a chaotic open space with cars and bots scattered alike. There were several cardboard boxes scattered around as well, their contents glittering red and gold in the ones no one had taped closed yet – vestiges of Tony’s exercise in permanently putting away anything Iron Man-related. Tony patted Dum-E, who’d greeted them upon arrival, and U beeped in what Steve belatedly translated as jealousy.

Steve had parked near the garage door. He picked up Morgan’s helmet, precariously balanced on the seat, hesitated, and then set it down on a nearby shelf that didn’t look too crowded. He answered Tony’s stony expression with a shrug. “Just in case.”

“In case of what? Be comprehensive, ‘cause when Pepper murders you, I want to write a super accurate epitaph.”

“Morgan liked the bike ride,” Steve commented in what was supposed to sound like a non-sequitur, climbing onto the Harley.

“She’d also like to wear an Iron Man suit and swing around with Peter, what children _like_ is usually the sort of thing-”

Steve had intended to cut him off with the engine roaring to life. Instead, he cut him off by the engine _not_ roaring to life – he tried again and again, making Tony wince at his treatment of the ignition, but his efforts were only met with silence. They both frowned at the motorcycle.

“You check the-”

“I’ve got a full tank.”

Steve stood up again, and didn’t even have to ask before Tony took the handles off his hands. He dropped the kickstand to make himself feel useful anyway. The bike was rolled over to a pool of light, coming from a lamp on Tony’s work table. It took the mechanic five seconds, probably because, like Steve, he already had an inkling of what he was looking for – he tugged at a rubber cable and it slipped away easily. From the look on his face, _too_ easily.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Tony drawled, tapping the throttle. “ _Déjà vu_. The spark plug is gone.”

Steve blinked. “Are you serious?”

“ _No_ , I’m joking about my daughter's attempt to literally direct the beginning of a real-life horror movie.”

“Okay, this is getting way out of-”

Pepper walked into the garage then; they’d made a ruckus, from the look on her face. She was carrying Morgan in her arms, who wasn’t making eye contact with anyone. Steve was honestly feeling too speechless to comment on that.

Tony’s wife took one look at him, elbows deep in his stash of spare engine parts, and sighed aggressively. Steve got the feeling whatever part was missing from his bike wasn’t going to get replaced right then.

“For the love of god, it is _eleven at night_ ,” she complained, rolling her eyes. “Just stay over, Steve. Tony will show you to the guest bedroom.”

Steve could swear he noticed an expression of triumph on Morgan’s face right before she hid it in her mother’s shoulder. Pepper disappeared into the little girl’s bedroom, the lights pointedly went out like FRIDAY had been ordered to do so, and Steve exchanged a resigned look with Tony.

“For the record, I’m still _not_ leading you on.”

* * *

The guest bedroom turned out to be Peter Parker’s bedroom. Tony called the idea ridiculous when Steve vocalized it, grabbing a Gryffindor hoodie off the bed to shove it with the rest of Peter’s discarded clothing, piled on the desk chair. “Teenagers,” Tony muttered exasperatedly, hesitating over the mess of books, pens and web-fluid containers scattered over the desk itself.

“Leave it,” Steve said. “It’s not bothering me, and kids hate it when their parents go into their rooms.”

Tony threw the hoodie at his face and left Steve to his own devices. For his part, Steve dropped down on the bed – he folded and set aside the Spider-Man comforter first, because there was only so much dignity he was willing to lose on Morgan's behalf – and winked out quickly.

His internal clock told him little over an hour passed before he was woken up with a start, ears picking up on the door being nudged open.

He knew who it was. He heard the tiny steps outside, unmistakably Morgan's, and then the impossibly quiet hiss of the hinges. Light pooled inside his room, just a crack, and a shadow immediately fell upon it. There was a beat of silence, a rustling of what were probably tailored Iron Man pajamas, and a soft _thump_.

Steve waited for ten seconds of quiet suspense and then looked down at the floor.

It was barely discernable – a mop of brown hair spilling over varnished wood, face tucked away from Steve. He could only see half her head through his open door – Morgan was lying on the ground, apparently fully prepared to sleep curled up against Steve's door like an anxious puppy.

Steve got out of bed and tip-toed across the room, opening the door fully. Morgan blinked up at him, a deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face. He crossed his arms.

“The bathtub is so much more comfortable.”

“Can't see you from the bathtub,” she argued.

“Maguna.”

“Uncle Steve.”

Steve sighed, wondering if he should wake up her parents. He sat down against the wall and crossed his legs. Morgan watched him. “Kid,” he finally said firmly, knowing he was going to have to put his foot down, “c’mere a second.”

She did – scooched over to nudge his arm, and slid under it. Steve pondered his next words in silence for a few moments. “I’m going to take a stab in the dark, here, and say _this –_ ” he gestured vaguely from her head to toe – “has something to do with your dad taking an unwilling, unplanned trip to Brooklyn yesterday.” _Kidnapping_ was such a harsh word, anyway.

“ _This_?” Morgan echoed, playing dumb.

“I don’t buy the act, ma’am.”

She screwed up her expression. “I’m bad at acting. Auntie Nat said so.”

“Don’t listen to her, she sets unrealistic expectations.”

Morgan didn’t reply and shifted, tucking herself more comfortably against Steve’s side. Steve expected her to be forthcoming eventually – even if she couldn’t fully verbalize her thoughts, maybe she could cue him into coaxing them out. He waited patiently for a few moments, and then he realized she was preparing herself to fall asleep right there, sitting up against the wall and wrapped under his arm.

Steve sat upright and shook her a bit. Her eyelids flew back open. “ _Hey_. It’s bad manners to fall asleep on someone you’re having a conversation with.”

Morgan was prepared to argue, because of course she was. “Was gonna have a conversation with you. In my dream. You were gonna promise to buy me ice cream.”

Steve couldn’t help the laugh. “Was I?”

“Yeah. Was your conversation better than mine?”

“No, definitely not. More important, though.”

“That doesn’t sound right.”

Steve crossed his arms. “What does your dad do when you extort him?”

“He gives me what I want.” She sounded unapologetically, unfalteringly sincere.

“Figures. Fine. You answer my questions, and tomorrow we’ll go get ice cream for breakfast.”

Morgan’s head snapped up to eye him gleefully. “Really?”

“Sure. Chocolate’s in all the food groups, right?”

“No.”

Steve scoffed, and she narrowed her eyes at him, which he ignored. “So – we have a deal?”

Morgan moped quietly for a second, shifting her gaze to the floor, and Steve kept an eye on her to make sure she wasn’t about to try sleeping again. She crossed her legs, tucked two strands of hair behind her ears, and plopped her elbows on her knees. Her face, now held up by tiny fists under her jaw, suddenly dropped – the bravado dissipated, her eyes gleamed a little duller, and that characteristic poised dimple, at the corner of her lips, faded entirely.

Morgan looked her age, in short, and very unsure of herself. It almost made him nervous. “Daddy said it again, yesterday,” she finally revealed. Steve frowned at her, but she kept going. “That you ‘pull him out of trouble’. If something bad happens, you can fix it,” she mumbled, maybe because it was for her more than it was for him. “But what if I can't call you? What if I can’t find you?”

_If I need help, I go to Uncle Steve._

Oh. _Oh_.

“Morgan,” Steve said, unable to keep shock from bleeding into his words a little, “have you been asking to spend so much time with me in case- so you can get to me quickly, if your dad’s in trouble?”

Morgan surged up, crawled into Steve’s arms, and buried her face in his shoulder. She remained completely silent, and he took it all as a resounding _yes_.

“ _Maguna_ ,” he breathed, hugging her closer, “nothing's gonna happen to him. I promise.”

Her eyes snapped up to glare at him. “You can't promise. No one can promise.”

Which was perfectly true. Steve thought about doubling down for a brief second before he remembered just how well that had worked out last time.

“You're right,” he told her instead. She flinched. “I can't. Bad things happen sometimes, and that’s not under our control.” _Your dad is in a position where bad things happening is far more likely than the average Joe, too,_ he decided against adding. “Which means, Morgan, that sitting here, stressed out of your mind – waiting for them to happen – it’s not just pointless, all it does is upset you even more.”

The stubborn look on Morgan's face only intensified. “I can sit here and _prevent_ them.”

 _I see a suit of armor around the world._ Steve was having an out-of-body experience. Surely Tony Stark's soul had escaped its host and was manifesting there, just like this, a precocious little girl wearing Iron Man pajamas in Steve's arms.

He blew a long, heavy breath through his nose. Steve knew this argument; Steve was intimately familiar with this debate. He set Morgan down beside him, again, and put an arm around her. She squirmed briefly until he tugged her against his side.

“A few years ago-” Steve began, as though he were telling a story, and Morgan settled down to listen accordingly. “A few years ago, your dad and I had a similar- discussion.” He waited for her to question his vocabulary, but she didn’t, so Steve continued. “He wanted- he saw something bad coming, and he wanted to protect everyone from it.”

“What's wrong with that?” Morgan demanded indignantly.

“I thought that what we’d have to give up to do it wasn’t worth that protection.” Steve could see it on her face – how completely absurd she found that statement. He fought the smile that expression inspired. “And you know what? In the end, every single one of his fears – plus a few unexpected ones – it all came true. Everything he tried to warn about and prevent, just- happened.” He took a moment to pause, looking at the mounting terror on Morgan’s face and wondering whether he was doing more harm than good. “And I still think he was wrong.”

Morgan started so hard, she nearly jolted right out of his arms. “ _Why_?”

Steve shook her again. “Because look at you right now, little lady. You’re so scared, you decided to camp outside my door.”

“’S not my fault,” she retorted, and for a second, Steve could swear her eyes brimmed with tears. “That I’m scared. It’s not my fault.”

“Not your fault,” he agreed, “but _that_ , you can do something about. The bad days will come and go, and you won’t see them coming no matter how much you know, or predict, or plan for them. There’s no planning for this kind of evil. So, you can choose to sleep on the floor, or you can choose to go dream about ice cream.”

Morgan hiccupped, which was Steve’s confirmation that she was definitely crying. He hadn’t prepared for this, but, for some reason, something compelled him to thumb her tears away. “I don’t want surprises like that.”

“No one does, Morgan. But I’m telling you – it’s so much worse if you worry about them before you ever know they’ll happen.”

“If I don’t worry, who does?”

Steve’s heart clenched. He desperately thought of anything _except_ Tony’s glassy eyes, the stones still burned into what was left of his hand. _We’ll lose._ _Then we’ll do that together too._ “Not you,” he insisted, because like _hell_ was Steve going to watch his niece follow in her father’s self-sacrificing footsteps. “You have to focus on the day you’re living now, not the one that _might_ come tomorrow.”

Morgan seemed to have run out of arguments. She was still clinging to his pajamas, but not as strongly. Steve let her think, hand coming up to rub circles on her back. “It’s hard,” she said, finally.

“I know it is, kid. And if it makes you feel better, for a little while, you can demand all the games of Uno you want.” She giggled and rubbed a hand over her eyes, pulling back and away from him. “But not forever. You won’t like sleeping on the floor for long.”

“Your fault,” she complained. “It’s the only place I can see you.”

“That’s creepy, Morgan.”

“No. I’m cute, not creepy.”

Steve shoved her with one hand and caught her around the back with the other, eliciting laughter. When her hands came up to shove back, he noticed the little dark smudges of dirt and oil under her fingernails, strangely reminiscent of someone who’d been messing around with engines she never should’ve touched. He tried to look stern and not amused. “We’re going to have a discussion about your problem-solving methods, one of these days, by the way.”

Morgan crossed her arms. “I get results.”

He couldn’t exactly argue that, so he stood up and dragged her along. She followed him to her room willingly, looking far calmer. “So, in your dream, what’s your ice cream order gonna be?”

“Two scoops of vanilla,” she replied promptly. It felt like a resolution to their argument.

“You’re boring.”

“You’re old.”

“One scoop of butter pecan it is.”

“You know, Peter would say you’re not using your power very responsibly.”

“Peter’s getting butter pecan ice cream too.”

* * *

Morgan didn’t wake up again, or if she did, she didn’t pay Steve another visit. The next morning, looking over the motorcycle again, Tony expressed his amazement.

“Morgan slept through the night,” he told him. “In her own bed. Where’s your magic pipe, and can I have it?”

Steve shook his head, taking in the sight of Tony tearing his own workshop apart to find whatever part was missing from the bike. Apparently, spark plugs for Steve’s Harley model were in short supply.

“She was just – she was scared, and a little confused about something.”

“Did you clear it up for her?”

 _You lose this again_ , Tony had berated him at t-minus-fifteen-minutes, a relieved look on his face and Steve’s shield in his arms, _and I’m keeping it_.

 _If I don’t worry, who does?_ “I hope I did,” Steve answered carefully. “She definitely cleared a few things up for me.”

Tony arched his brows at him. “Don’t tell me – you discovered _Dora the Explorer_.”

“I- what?”

Tony waved him off. “What’d she tell you?”

Steve hesitated. He wondered if he shouldn’t just tell Tony he should talk to Morgan himself – he’d have to, one way or another, but maybe he needed to hear it from her. Tony’s eyes narrowed, probably only becoming more concerned at Steve mimicking his daughter’s cageyness, and the decision was made for him.

“Remember the- you told her to come to me for help.”

“Yes?”

“Morgan took that to mean she should keep me within helping distance, after your incident two days ago.”

Tony stared at him for several seconds too long. Steve didn’t know how much of it was him assimilating his words, and how much was pure disbelief. Tony slowly set down the latest box he’d been rummaging through.

“Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Actually, that makes so much sense, I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out before.”

He was looking thoughtful. Steve leaned against the wall of the workshop, waiting him out. Morgan was sleeping in, finally succumbing to her stress-fueled sleep deprivation. That was probably a good thing – Tony had time to get his own thoughts in order before trying to work out hers.

The thoughtfulness in Tony’s expression turned into torment progressively.

“Dunno how to shield her from this,” he eventually mumbled, pressing a palm to his forehead, as though he was feeling feverish. “I can't-”

“You don’t have to,” Steve cut in quickly. “If there's anyone who should know all shields break eventually, it's you.”

“Valid, biting point,” Tony grit out. “Days like this are gonna happen again.”

Steve nodded. “They will. And you’ll be there for her while she struggles and then moves on.”

“Rinse, repeat.” Tony sounded bitter.

“Rinse, repeat is your best-case scenario.”

Tony wouldn’t make eye contact, turning back to his worktable. His movements had slowed, but Steve decided Morgan wasn’t the only one who needed to _rinse, repeat_ once in a while. He’d said so himself – just another bad day that would pass.

Steve picked the distraction route for this one. “I promised her ice cream for breakfast.”

Tony instantly spun around with a disparaging look on his face. “It’s a good thing she’s _definitely_ not waking up before lunch.”

Steve grinned at him. Tony scowled back. He nodded at the mess of metal, rubber parts scattered all over the floor, a sea of trinkets and toys with cardboard boxes for islands. “Did you end up fixing the bike?”

“Huh? Oh – yeah, no, it’s still missing the plug.”

Steve hesitated, and made a valiant attempt to give Morgan the benefit of exonerating doubt. “Is that- normal? Maybe it fell off.”

Tony visibly struggled not to roll his eyes, but he seemed to accept that he was being led away from his own thought spiral. He approached the Harley to poke the cable from the previous night again. “No, it’s not normal. People don’t build vehicles expecting vital parts to break off. It makes it so the bike doesn’t start, see.”

“Do you know how many people walk around with cracked phone screens-”

Morgan showed up right then, with highly suspicious timing. Wordlessly, she approached her father, kissed him on the cheek, and dropped something that glinted like metal in his outstretched hand. Steve suddenly knew exactly what a spark plug looked like. Morgan walked right back out of the garage before anyone thought of anything to say.

Steve arched his brows at Tony when she disappeared up the stairs. Tony shrugged. “She finds things, sometimes,” he explained magnanimously. “Maybe we should head on over to your place and see if she can find the order of the spark plugs for my engine.”

Steve glanced at the piece of machinery in Tony's hands, which he was already slotting back into place on his bike with the tool he’d had at the ready. “Did she damage anything?”

Tony looked genuinely offended. “Are you calling my daughter an amateur?”

“Never,” Steve replied drily. “May she skillfully sabotage cars and bikes for years to come.”

Tony stood, wiped his hands on his jeans, and kicked the kickstand into place. He turned on the ignition and Steve's bike roared back to life.

“Good as new,” he claimed cheerfully. “Whoever dislodged the cable knew what they were doing, solid work.”

Steve rolled his eyes and hopped onto the seat. “Go say it in front of her, otherwise it's pointless.”

“Planning to.”


End file.
